Footballers you met...and how were they...

Mr_Spaceman

I've met Ally McCoist a couple of times.

He is exactly as you would expect - a bit of a cheeky chappy and really friendly guy, with time for everyone.

COYVB

The Irish squad were at Portmarnock when I was getting married. When the wife was coming out for the ceremony she tells me Richard Dunne and John O'Shea were absolute gents to her, telling her she looked gorgeous and being generally top chaps. She's Canadian so didn't know who they were, but figured they were with the Irish team.

One side of her family is Italian, and Trap had loads of time for them too

brianregan09

Met Mcateer and Phil Babb years ago, Had an Arsenal jersey on...Mcateer asks me how long have i been supporting Liverpool no joke, Babb started laughing and put his hand over his face , Little 13 year old me didn't know was he serious or taking the piss, They were both dead on sound though

Met Paul Mcgrath twice and the guy seemed more nervous than I was such a nice fella

andrew1977

Frank Stapleton- Stopped for pictures, autographs and a chat to my young lad, .Sound out was Frank

Paddy Crerand- Top man, could not have been anymore obliging or friendly.

Peter Schmeichel- . No problem, autographs signed.

Roy Keane- No problem, signed autograph, posed for photo.. goodbye:)

Stephen Hunt,, bang on, couldn't have been any nicer.

Bobby Charlton, quiet, signed and posed for picture, not much conversation.

billyhead

Met John Giles, Trevor Stephen and Kenny Cunningham at the RTE studios where I was part of the live studio audience on the Saturdays premiership highlights programme a number of years ago. All were dead sound and chatty especially Kenny Cunningham whos a funny bloke. Also bumped into Packie Bonner out shopping in Poland at Euro 2012. He was also full of chat.

Umpalumpa

Met noel hunt in a pub in London when Ireland played Brazil.pretty sound bloke who took time to talk to us.

losthorizon

Met Paul McGrath too at a LOI game really really nice fellow. Dont like going up to people invading their privacy but he was nice.

I think people have a right not to sign autographs and not be bothered with you if they want to be as some well known people must be plagued.

Another one I just remembered, again not much of a name to drop these days, but was staying in the same hotel as the Birmingham City team before the League Cup semi at Leeds back in 96, and Barry Fry spoke to a couple of us for a drink or two. He was the exact same as Barry Fry the tv persona, loud, larger than life, colourful.

DaveyCakes

I met Rui Costa, Fernando Couto and Vitor Baia in the Gaiety Theatre after an Ireland-Portugal friendly about 20 years ago (do they still do a club night there?). They were friendly enough as far as I remember.

Saw the Reading squad in Heathrow a few years back. I asked Kevin Doyle and Stephen Hunt if I could get a photo, and both were very obliging.

stick-dan

Met Steven Gerrard. Really obliging, took photos and had a quick word. Bumped into him an hour later with mates having coffee in airport waiting for flight, had a chat with them and was genuinely sound out. Was going out of his way to say hi to people in Liverpool jerseys who didn't know he was behind them. Their faces were priceless.

Met Martin Kelly the same day, really happy to take a photo also and have a quick word or two. Nice guy.

Met ian Rush and a questions and answers night, can have a bit of banter with him. Enjoyed our chat, got a signed football from him which was epic!

Just a shout out for Darragh Moloney, not a footballer but very well informed on the topic and enjoyed talking to him for nearly an hour. Sound bloke.

Sir Gallagher

I met Pat Dolan outside the West County hotel in Chapelizod, i was at a 21st an he was asking were there any aul ones in there that ge could get into

I told him i followed Liverpool and he said that Benitez was a spoofer, Pat Dolan calling Rafa Benitez a spoofer, myself and my mates just laughed in his face.

A friend of mine worked in the Portmarnock hotel so she'd be serving the Irish squad often enough. She said Roy Keane was the nicest of the lot of them, a real gentleman. Shay Given was the worst apparently, a complete prick by all accounts.

ThunbergsAreGo

Damian Delaney gave me chicken wings and wedges,

I will be forever in his debt

John O Shea and Robbie Keane also seemed very nice. Story (urban legend) that Richard Dunne paid for one of the pub owners sons to ge on the tear with him and flew him to Manchester to open a night club!

thebaz

castletownman wrote: »

Have met Paul McGrath a couple of times at Wexford GAA matches. Couldn't meet a nicer fella. Seems to take genuine interest in all sporting matters in his adopted county.

Paul McGrath for me too , met him a couple of times - class act - its rare your heroes live up to expectations - but mcgrath is just class - best Irish footballer in my book, as he is sick of me telling him , every time -

thebaz

and talking of class acts , why am I not surprised that the eversmiling goody two shoes lineker , is anything but.

Has the insincere smile of some dodgy salesman :pac:

comewatmay

Robbie fowler- sound
Jason mcateer - sound
Peter crouch-sound
Kevin Davies-sound
Gary Cahill - dickhead
Robbie Keane -sound

Hank Scorpio

Met Paul McGrath when I was working in a restaurant years ago, signed autographs and was really friendly. The man is an absolute giant in real life

Royal Legend

eagle eye wrote: »

While they played for Ireland I met pretty much every player during the Jack Charlton era.

The best of the lot was Mick McCarthy. Paul McGrath was a very nice guy as well. Kevin Moran, Frank Stapleton, Tony Cascarino, Denis Irwin and Andy Townsend would have also stood out as more approachable and down to earth people.

I moved to the States then and over there I met Curtis Fleming along with Terry Phelan. Gotta put Curtis in that bracket as well. Phelan didn't do anything wrong but always felt he would rather not be near you and that goes back to when he was with the Republic. There were plenty of players that you'd feel that way about.

I met Ray Wilkins in the 80's along with Moran and Stapleton and he came across as a very decent guy too.

In more recent times I've met a few Blackburn Rovers players. Tugay, David Dunn, Damien Duff and Brad Friedel were all very nice.

Wilkins an absolute wank5r. When I was a kid I was at an Arsenal game and he was a spectator, just above the school boy enclosure in Highbury, asked for his autograph during half time and he told us to Fkuc off.

wandatowell

Royal Legend wrote: »

asked for his autograph during half time and he told us to Fkuc off.

lol, did he actually tell ye to fcuk off?

Pedro K

Never met him in person, but had a great deal of experience with Terry Curran of Sheffield Wednesday over the phone a few years back.

He was a regular customer of the company I worked for at the time

He is an absolutely horrible person. Rude, angry, aggressive and abusive. Every time, without fail, for no reason whatsoever.

He often flew into fits of rage for no reason at all other than his own obvious anger issues.

A really awful dude.

MD1990

Chancer3001 wrote: »

Martin known is around galway a lot, he's sound.

Robbie Keane, wolves days, sound as a pound,

Packie bonner in ñ pub, had no interest in talking to anybody dick.

Danny welbeck, sound,generous.

Ole Gunnar solskjaer , sound, drives a mini!

Stephen hunt and Shane long, stopped for a chat when they didn't need to, very sound, and funny.

Lillian thuram, was playing soccer with his kids in Central Park. We asked him for a photo and he pulled the piss out of us for ages, pretending he wasn't thuram at all. He was so sound.

Nesta, didn't say much, but sound.

Denis Irvin, surprisingly strong looking, sound.

Zola, last year, in absolutely ridiculously good shape for his age. Looks ripped still. Sound.

David forde, irish keeper, in galway united days, sound man!

Eider gudjohnsen, stopped for a chat, sound.

So everyone's sound or a dick :pac:

Will I Amnt

So has anybody not met Paul McGrath?

steirishrover

Met the whole Celtic side about 8 year ago. Most of them sound including Nakamura & Thomas Gravesen.

Only 2 were gob****es was Neil Lennon & Kenny Miller. Lennon was not very obliging and Miller was a rude cocky so and so.

Met Aberdeen players in summer all sound except Willo Flood..

Met Norman Whiteside and he is a genuine nice chap. Niall Quinn was a gentle also a time I met him.

My sister worked in a bar years ago where a lot of teams on pre season tour would drop in.. Said David James was a complete w*****. Phil Babb asked her out and promised her the moon and stars if she agreed.

Mick McCarthy sound man also

efb

Ian Wright - bit of a dick

Kirby

So you meet a person once and he is either sound or a dick. The Ray Wilkins thing above drives that one home. A gent to one person and a dick to another.

For every lad who is supposedly the soundest around, you will find somebody out there he was a prick to. Chancer3001 noted his poor experience with Bonner. When I met him, he was pleasant enough but I'm not childish enough to think I actually know him well enough to make that call.

Don't be basing your opinion of people off second hand gossip or 10 minutes you spent with them once. Some of you are like little old ladies. It's embarrassing.

upandcumming

The entire Town team! What a great bunch of lads! Hon the Town!! Denis Behan too. Amazingly sound man. Makes me feel bad about the abuse I hurled at him in my time.

Stayed in CityWest after the Town won the cup in 03. Whole Pats team came in to the swimming pool to relax the next day. Great craic!

Kolarov and Ivanovic and the rest of the Serbian team. Kolarov is made of stone. Ivanovic pretty much the same. The Serbian manager was great craic. Liverpool when they were over. Nice lads but some of them were pricks. Kelly in particular. Rodgers was 100%.

razorblunt

Met McAteer and McManaman in Paris a few years back, in that fancy restaurant under the Eiffel, I was with work they were with family and friends, as we were leaving they were getting ready to leave too so I popped over, told McManaman my parents hated him as I used to always get his name on my jersey so it was quite expensive and they eventually made me pick another, he asked who I replaced him with "Bjornabye" I says - they broke their arse laughing!

Saw John Aldridge, Don Hutchinson and McAteer (again) last summer in Portugal, Aldridge has a gaff over there, they were all sound out, poor old Don was getting left out as the Irish around the town were all over the other two for photos. There were a round of qualifiers on so there was an Irish and English game on simultaneously, they all joined in with the general commentary ongoing in the bar itself.

Kirby

Kirby wrote: »

So you meet a person once and he is either sound or a dick. The Ray Wilkins thing above drives that one home. A gent to one person and a dick to another.

For every lad who is supposedly the soundest around, you will find somebody out there he was a prick to. Chancer3001 noted his poor experience with Bonner. When I met him, he was pleasant enough but I'm not childish enough to think I actually know him well enough to make that call.

Don't be basing your opinion of people off second hand gossip or 10 minutes you spent with them once. Some of you are like little old ladies. It's embarrassing.

Ah.

I simply asked people what was their experience when they met a footballer.

It's a perfectly legitimate question. And posters can recount their experience.

I am not asking for a full assessment of their character. I suspect few here are psychologists.

keano_afc

Agent Coulson wrote: »

I met him on one of his bad days 12/13 years ago a lovely man but it broke my heart seeing that way.

Likewise, I was at a wedding in the Riverside Park hotel in Enniscorthy a couple of Christmases ago and he was at the bar hammered drunk. Had to be helped out. Hard seeing him like that.

Kirby

Deleted User wrote: »

Ah.

I simply asked people what was their experience when they met a footballer.

It's a perfectly legitimate question. And posters can recount their experience.

I am not asking for a full assessment of their character. I suspect few here are psychologists.

It is a legitimate question. No doubt about that. But it just irks me when posters start calling players or managers dicks or w*nkers on the basis of a few minutes of interaction. Like the rest of us are personable at all times.

Captain Havoc

Served quite a few a work, Neil Lennon was the most recent one, I had difficulty with his norry accent but he was pleasant posing for photos etc... I never let on I know who I'm dealing with, except one time with Andy Gray, who was pleasant. Outside of work I met Tony Cascarino who was really nice and chatty and asking me questions about my work, I don't think football was mentioned once in that conversation, and it was a fairly long one. Harry Redknapp showed my mum and me onto the pitch at the Boleyn Ground, before he was West Ham manager, was really nice. I bump into Dave Mulcahy regularly enough, he's sound. I've not dealt with any pricks. Others that I dealt with are Mickey Adams, Sean O'Connor, Seani Maguire, Mircea and Razvan Lucescu and Jörg Stiel. I'm sure there's others, I just can't think of them right now.

Jose1

naughtb4 wrote: »

gary Kelly seemed like a decent bloke, he drinks in the same local as ourselves sometimes.

let the worst fart I have ever smelt, cleared a room

Orlando (World Cup) 1994, Gary Kelly walked away from my daughter, who was just a young child at that time, when she asked him for his autograph. I reminded him that we lived in Drogheda (his home town) but the pr**k just kept walking.

OwaynOTT

Met Essien, Mourinho and a joe Cole in Beverly Hills in 2007 or so, they were at a training camp at UCLA.
Poor auld Essien was devastated. The girl that was with me with up to him and he thought she was looking for his autograph and was being all friendly but his face dropped when she was only interested in Jose and not him.
Mourinho talked to us for a few mins and we got pictures and all.
Joe Cole was out outside having a fag whilst taking a break from being 'Golf Ball Messi'.

Flange/Flanders

Met Stephen Hunt in Coppers about 3 years ago, he was loaded. Small enough and being a pro Id say it wouldnt take much for him to get drunk. Shook our hand, seemed generally up for the banter.

The Backwards Man

I'm sure there are as many people that think I'm a dick as there are think I'm sound too.

On topic, been in the company of Kammy a few times and he's a gas man, great singer too.

Knex*

razorblunt wrote: »

Met McAteer and McManaman in Paris a few years back, in that fancy restaurant under the Eiffel, I was with work they were with family and friends, as we were leaving they were getting ready to leave too so I popped over, told McManaman my parents hated him as I used to always get his name on my jersey so it was quite expensive and they eventually made me pick another, he asked who I replaced him with "Bjornabye" I says - they broke their arse laughing!

That's hilarious :pac:

quarryman

Too many boring "sound" footballers it seems.

More stories about dicks please.




Wait, that's not what I meant...

SM01

Nicky Butt and Roy Keane in what used to be the Chocolate Bar many moons ago. I think both of them were in Dublin doing some Diadora promotional work and were out for a drink afterwards. Both were pleasant and signed autographs, Butt more approachable but Roy was grand. The other lads I was with made a point of saying I was a Liverpool supporter and both of them (more Butt though) took the piss out of me but were good sports about it.

I worked with Katie Taylor too for a photoshoot in 2007/2008 for Elverys. She played with the Irish team so she'd qualify. She's exactly the same as she comes across on screen. Very pleasant, shy, bashful, no ego, really sound.

The other half used to work in what was Ba Mizu in Powercourt Townhouse Centre and Steve Staunton was in around the time he was Ireland manager. When ordering he asked her did she know who he was (she's Scottish and has no interest in football) to which she replied 'no'. Apparently that was not what he wanted to hear, he blanked her and spent the remainder of his stay peacocking, wanting to be noticed by other clientele. According to herself though, half the folk who drank there at the time were pretentious w@nkers so he fitted in well.

stryker mcqueen

Damien Duff - played a astro tournament he put his name to in June just before he went to Oz , really sound .

Shane Long - took a video of him on the west brom xmas party busking in temple bar , bang on , also Boaz Myhill was sound ,

Met Ross McCormack over in glasgow in November when i was over for the match , he wasnt in the squad and just walking down the street , we were in ireland gear and he stopped for a chat and was nice .

Darragh Moloney went on the piss with us in Estonia in 2011 , very genuine nice fella .

footballers - a great bunch of lads !

DVDM93

Not me, but my wife met John Terry on a night out in London. Despite all the bad press he gets she said he was one of the nicest and most charming blokes she ever met. Didn't believe she had met him when she text me so told her to get a pic to show me later that night when she got home. She didn't end up coming home that night as last minute plans happened and she ended up staying in a friends. Low and behold it was him in the picture when she showed me the following morning. A gent imo from what she told me, can't understand the bad image we're portrayed of him by the media.

Sir Gallagher

SM01 wrote: »

The other half used to work in what was Ba Mizu in Powercourt Townhouse Centre and Steve Staunton was in around the time he was Ireland manager. When ordering he asked her did she know who he was (she's Scottish and has no interest in football) to which she replied 'no'. Apparently that was not what he wanted to hear, he blanked her and spent the remainder of his stay peacocking, wanting to be noticed by other clientele. According to herself though, half the folk who drank there at the time were pretentious w@nkers so he fitted in well.

Didn't Richie Sadlier say Stan started on him in Coppers or something. The guy just seems to have a screw loose.

I like to think of Stan as a Patrick Bateman from American Psycho like figure. Imagine the internal monologue of Stan, hillarious yet bonechilling.

Sir Gallagher

DVDM93 wrote: »

Not me, but my wife met John Terry on a night out in London. Despite all the bad press he gets she said he was one of the nicest and most charming blokes she ever met. Didn't believe she had met him when she text me so told her to get a pic to show me later that night when she got home. She didn't end up coming home that night as last minute plans happened and she ended up staying in a friends. Low and behold it was him in the picture when she showed me the following morning. A gent imo from what she told me, can't understand the bad image we're portrayed of him by the media.

Corholio

Kirby wrote: »

It is a legitimate question. No doubt about that. But it just irks me when posters start calling players or managers dicks or w*nkers on the basis of a few minutes of interaction. Like the rest of us are personable at all times.

Pretty human reaction to have a negative view of someone based on a a particular encounter, I don't know why that's irking or strange. It doesn't mean they want them to die or anything, they just have a negative view.

wonderfullife

DVDM93 wrote: »

Not me, but my wife met John Terry on a night out in London. Despite all the bad press he gets she said he was one of the nicest and most charming blokes she ever met. Didn't believe she had met him when she text me so told her to get a pic to show me later that night when she got home. She didn't end up coming home that night as last minute plans happened and she ended up staying in a friends. Low and behold it was him in the picture when she showed me the following morning. A gent imo from what she told me, can't understand the bad image we're portrayed of him by the media.

your wife met JT and didn't come home and stayed ''in a friends'' ..........

killwill

DVDM93 wrote: »

Not me, but my wife met John Terry on a night out in London. Despite all the bad press he gets she said he was one of the nicest and most charming blokes she ever met. Didn't believe she had met him when she text me so told her to get a pic to show me later that night when she got home. She didn't end up coming home that night as last minute plans happened and she ended up staying in a friends. Low and behold it was him in the picture when she showed me the following morning. A gent imo from what she told me, can't understand the bad image we're portrayed of him by the media.

Post of the day!

Sir Gallagher

Sir Gallagher wrote: »

I like to think of Stan as a Patrick Bateman from American Psycho like figure. Imagine the internal monologue of Stan, hillarious yet bonechilling.

And he definitely listens to Phil Collins "No Jacket Required".

razorblunt

Knex. wrote: »

That's hilarious :pac:

True story, he was number 20 as well so they still had to pay for double numbers.
The whole name on the back of the jersey days finished that season!

kfallon

razorblunt wrote: »

True story, he was number 20 as well so they still had to pay for double numbers.
The whole name on the back of the jersey days finished that season!

Whatever you asked for they just bought you 'Rush 9'

Guy:Incognito

efb wrote: »

Ian Wright - bit of a dick

My experience with Wright is the complete opposite.

Met him at the acropolis the day after the 07 cl final. Pissing rain and trying to get a photo with the last dregs of battery on my cousins phone. Stood for ages waiting on it to work and kept telling him to relax, there's no rush. Talked to us for a couple of minutes and was dead sound. His missus was giving out and saying we already got a photo with him earlier, he knew we hadn't and told her to give it a rest.

razorblunt

kfallon wrote: »

Whatever you asked for they just bought you 'Rush 9'

They tried pushing BABB 4 (or 6 can't remember his number), fortunately I wasn't that naive!

DVDM93

wonderfullife wrote: »

your wife met JT and didn't come home and stayed ''in a friends'' ..........

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xECUrlnXCqk